Findings

Testwise

In the early 1990s, many critics of a proposed national testing
system maintained that U.S. students were already the "most heavily
tested on earth." But were they right? The answer depends on how you
count the tests, says Richard Phelps, a senior research analyst at the
American Institutes for Research in Washington, D.C. Phelps looked at
data from four national and international studies conducted from
1990-91. When he counted the number of hours students spent taking
tests, U.S. students ranked closer to the least heavily tested than the
most. Students in France, Italy, Denmark, and Belgium, for example,
spent more than five times as much time taking high-stakes tests than
did U.S. students. Phelps then counted the number of tests that
students took. Again, the U.S. ranked low. Ten of the 13 other
countries he examined had more systemwide tests than the U.S. average
of 2.5, he writes in the fall issue of Educational Measurement:
Issues and Practice. But individual tests can be given more than
once during the school year and at several different grade levels, so
Phelps counted each grade-level or seasonal administration separately.
Measured that way, the U.S. does appear to test more frequently. In one
study of 13 nations, only Scotland and Germany had more individual test
administrations. Phelps concludes that while U.S. educators may not
necessarily test more, they certainly test differently than their
foreign counterparts. Where other countries tend to give students
lengthy tests at key transition points in their schooling, U.S. school
districts rely on shorter, off-the-shelf tests and administer them at
several grade levels. Moreover, the U.S. tests tended to be low-stakes
ventures--students were not held accountable for their performance--and
norm-referenced rather than pegged to any criteria for student
achievement. "Our students face the lowest amount of high-stakes,
mandated, and criterion-referenced testing in the world," Phelps
writes. "Instead our students face a plethora of...well...unimportant
tests."

Wrong Equation

Suppose you were given three kinds of algebra problems to solve. The
first a typical symbolic equation, such as 3 x 5 + 34 = y. The second a
word equation, something like: "Start with 100, subtract 40, and then
divide by 3." And the last a typical story problem. Which would you say
is hardest for students to solve? Kenneth Koedinger and colleagues at
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and the University of Colorado
at Boulder put that question to teachers. And their findings--from two
separate studies--suggest that teachers often fail to predict what
kinds of problems their students find most difficult. Most of the 173
math educators surveyed thought the story problems or their word
equa-tions would be hardest for students. But the students studied,
most of whom were 9th graders in urban schools, made more errors on
symbol-only equations. The reason students had better luck with verbal
problems, according to the researchers, may be because those kinds of
equations fit better with their real-life thought processes. But
typical algebra courses, it turns out, comport with the teachers'
thinking. The courses start out with symbolic equations and build up to
seemingly more complicated story problems. "We're not very aware that
we think of arithmetic operations more verbally than symbolically,"
says Koedinger. "This puts a focus on the idea that teaching is more
than knowing content." Koedinger and his colleagues Mitchell Nathan and
Hermina Tabachneck presented their findings last spring at the annual
meet-ing of the American Educational Research Association.

Money Matters

Education researchers and economists have argued for more than 30
years over whether larger school budgets boost students' academic
performance. Now a new book from the Brookings Institution, a
Washington, D.C.-based think tank, draws together prominent thinkers on
both sides of the issue. Their collective answer: Maybe yes, maybe no.
"In the recent past, some infusions of extra resources have helped
students in some schools; and additional school resources in the more
distant past have been associated with sizable and significant gains in
adult earnings," writes the book's editor, Gary Burtless, a senior
fellow in Brookings' economic-studies program. "The studies in this
book suggest, on balance, that the case for additional resources is far
from overwhelming." To order a copy of Does Money Matter? The Effect
of School Resources on Student Achievement and Adult Success,
contact the Brookings Institution Publications Dept., 1775
Massachusetts Ave. N.W.; Washington, D.C. 20036; (800) 275-1447.

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